1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to an automatic clothes washing machine, and, in particular, to a lint filter for use in an automatic washing machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
It is desirable, in an automatic washing machine, to provide means for the removal of lint from the liquid during the washing operation. To this end, various lint filter devices have been utilized in the past.
The prior art teaches the use of lint filters incorporated in the vaned agitator which vaned agitator causes the washing liquid to be circulated and flow through the filtering device. Examples of such filtering devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,744,402 and 2,976,711. Cleaning of such filtering devices, however, has been accomplished by removing the agitator from the machine and then somehow cleaning the filter and subsequently replacing the agitator in the machine. This is a laborious but necessary task if the filter is to continue functioning properly. In addition, it is highly desirable to have the lint filter visible to the machine operator and not buried under the agitator so that the operator will be reminded to clean the filter as needed. Otherwise, there is a tendency to not clean the filter thus drastically reducing the lint gathering quality.
By my invention I have improved the prior art lint filters in that I have provided a filter agitator assembly that may be cleaned without removing the agitator and the filter is positioned to be readily visible to the machine operator so that there is a visible indication that the filter needs to be cleaned.